Apparently, Touch did not know the meaning of the word relax. During their stay over the next few days, Rachel periodically saw Touch partaking in a myriad of different activities. Most commonly, he could be found sitting shirtless, under a tree on the other-side of the hostel. Gymnastics rings hanging from a branch. A few books, his tablet, and Arch by his side.
During dinner, Rachel follows the sound of shouting to the back library, and a growing gaggle of bystanders, where Touch was having a heated debate, regarding something about violence and politics, against that really intense lady she saw last night, and a congregation of others, each taking their turn to speak their mind. Touch stood alone in the back corner of the library; legs apart, chest wide, jaw set. His opponents arranged around him in a half circle, cornering him like a gang of muggers kept at bay by the searing force of the stone man's stare.
“Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Power is the ability of one person to expand or restrict the options of another. Force is the means by which you restrict someone’s options. This definition encompasses all manner of coercion and control. Everything from persuading someone to change their mind, hiding or manipulating information to get them to do what you want, denying someone goods and services unless they do as you say, with the ultimate use of force being physical violence, as your options tend to be pretty limited if you’re dead.
To quote Isaac Asimov, ‘violence is the last refuge of the incompetent’. Meaning, that the people who resort to violence to get what they want are not smart or skilled enough to use any other means. The part of your brain that processes violent behavior is on a separate system that the part that processes critical thought and creativity, and it is indirectly connected with the part of your brain associated with memory and skill. By normalizing and habituating violent behavior, you corrupt and degrade the other parts of your brain, if only by letting them atrophy. Thus, violence is inherently corruptive. Any authority that uses violence to maintain its power over people is not only illegitimate, but incompetent.
Because of this, humans have evolved to avoid violence at all costs, as you should know if you read my paper as I requested, but twelve thousand years ago, humans did something both fantastic and horrifying. They created written language. One of humanity’s greatest achievements had an unforeseen consequence: it allowed people to delegate responsibilities for their actions to abstract concepts like law and religion, etched in contract and doctrine, rather than their own conscience. Thus, the corrupt and powerful could raise armies of people willing to subjugate and stifle their conscience, if only for a short time, for things like duty and honor. Humanity is not inherently violent or corrupt, we have both violent and altruistic instincts. The only thing a ‘system’ can do is encourage or discourage certain behaviors. “
This monologue apparently reframed the whole argument that Rachel missed in Touch’s favor. After a moment's discussion, the crowd conceded defeat and broke apart into dozens of discussions as the debaters mixed with the audience. Rachel elbows her way across the room to her friend Stephan.
“What’s all this?” Rachel asks.
Stephan smiles as she approaches and pushes up his glasses.
“Your friend really turned that around. I thought he was done for.”
Stephan explains that Touch had been losing badly. His opponents were confidently swatting away every point he made, accusing him of being too idealistic. He was forced to concede every subject and try to prove his point from a different angle: history, human nature, political theory, neuroscience, anthropology. They had been going at it for at least two hours. Finally, they moved in for the killing blow that would have Touch concede the whole discussion.
“You should have seen it. His shoulders were sagging, his eyes were wide as he struggled to think up new arguments on the fly. He was fidgeting with his hair constantly. He was on the ropes.”
But then, as they closed in, Touch stood up straight as Rachel had seen him, and gave the speech that turned the argument on its head, connecting each isolated point he made into one cohesive narrative. Rachel tried to follow along with her friend’s summary, but the actual argument just didn’t interest her. There was simply no point in talking about what everyone else should do, what should have been done in the past, or anything else you can’t control. And nitpicking over details detracts from the actual substance of the conversation. But she loved the passion in her friends’ eyes as he told his story, both Stephan and Touch.
While combative debating didn’t suit her, she was glad to see everyone was having fun. The crowd was getting too much for her, so she retreats back to her room. If she was ever to join in that kind of conversation, it would have to be in a quiet talk, away from strangers.
The next day, because verbal sparring wasn’t enough, she saw Touch in the same situation as last night, but everyone was armed with wooden practice swords, knifes, batons, and staffs. Touch, of course, used his dull twin sabers. Unlike his opponents, he didn’t use padded gloves.
He fought people one on one, all on one, and a few on one. He was quick, wild, and unpredictable. She only saw a shadow of this during their one-on-one sessions over the past two weeks. Here, he didn’t seem to hold back, nor did he seem to tire out. She continued to watch until someone joined in with a katana. Then she became an enthusiastic participant, switching out whenever the owner of the katana got tired. The wooden weapons didn’t stick to each other when you got into a bind like swords do. Some tried to fix this by adding groves to the wooden blades, but it still took a bit of getting used to.
“So, this is the Golem’s protégé?” The swole woman with the swirling tattoo and the glare asks. Apparently, her name is Sal, and Rachel wonders how many skulls she had to crush to get people to drop the ‘y’ from her name.
“Let’s see what he’s been teaching you.” Sal says.
Touch and everyone else back away and circle the two girls. Sal picks up a short staff, no longer than the katana she was using. They circle each-other, Rachel refuses to make the first move, and waits for her opponent to come at her as Sal tries to bait her several times.
Then she starts committing her blows, and testing Rachel’s defense, still taking it slow. Rachel throws a few basic counters her way, testing her defense in turn, without trying to reveal too much.
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Sal makes a sudden lunge. Before she can think, Rachel's already redirected the blade and closed in. She has to stop herself from delivering a blow to Sal’s side too hard, then immediately steps back into the defense position once more.
The crowds quietly gasps.
“Yesss” Touch pumps his fist into the air.
Sal smiles and readies for round two.
Rachel and Sal both walk away with some nasty bruises. Each round, Sal held back a little less, forcing Rachel to do the same, until they were dancing uncomfortably close to real fighting speeds. If one of them made a mistake, it could easily lead to a broken bone.
Sal was obviously the more experienced fighter, but she was more conventional, and became predictable after a while. Rachel was forced to keep up by switching strategies constantly, just like Touch did to her.
No one kept score because no one cared about winning, though Rachel knows she was bested. The only thing this crowd cared about was improving, having fun, and trying to beat the crap out of Touch. She continued to spar for another hour, though none of the bouts were nearly as intense as the first. It was refreshing to go up against other opponents with different styles. Sparring against Touch’s twin sabers twice a day for two weeks was starting to grow stale.
Touch eventually stopped when Arch broke up a bout that was getting too intense by running out of the building and tazing his opponent.
Touch kept up a routine of constant reading, debating, exercising, meditating, sparring, and pampering Arch. While Rachel spent most of her time listening to music, and drawing on her tablet, sketching and coloring the crowd at dinner, the debate scene, and a picture of Stephan’s robot hand. She also occasionally went out and fraternized with the locals.
The next day, Sal was at her door, broom in hand, mouth curled in malicious glee.
“Your turn.” She says, handing her the broom.
Apparently, this place has no dedicated staff. Instead, chores and other work are done by the people who stay here. May posts tasks she needs done on the job board, and lets her guests get it done however they see fit. So a little tradition formed among the people here; once you complete a job from the board, you get to pass the next job on to whomever you choose.
Some people found a job they liked and stuck to it, passing on other jobs they were nominated for like a game of hot potato. Some jobs were passed around between friends like a game of tag. The only way to break the cycle was to pass it on to someone less petty and vengeful. Others traded jobs like cards, swapping out easy jobs or exchanging harder jobs for favors.
To keep people from crowding the board, May posted the jobs at random times throughout the day. It was also tradition not to spread word of the board changing, to keep from attracting a crowd.
After she was done cleaning, Rachel decided to immediately pass cooking duty on to Touch.
“You fool.” Touch says. “You have chosen war.”
It was worth it to pop into the kitchen and see the stone man standing stoically in an apron, staring down piles of sandwich ingredients with the same thoughtful sobriety a criminal would lend to a bank heist, a surgeon to his patient, or a chemist to a volatile experiment.
She wanted to stay and watch Touch work. So she started pitching in where ever someone looked like they could use a hand. Touch spent a disproportionate amount of time staring at the food and casting an unsettling gaze about the room as he took stock of each ingredient and spice. Every crumb and every grain of salt.
Eventually, Touch got to work assembling the sandwiches. As soon as he did, Rachel was by his side, ready to help out. Together they made spicy fried tofu sandwiches, vegan pancakes topped with chocolate sauce and strawberries (after Touch went rogue, taking the peanut butter and bananas that were meant for the sandwiches, and raiding the other cook’s territories for the rest of the ingredients.)
“What are you doing?” Rachel watches as Touch takes the peels from the bananas and starts cutting them into thin strings.
“Watch and learn wide-eyes. Watch and learn.”
He mixes in paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper and a little bit of barbecue sauce, then cooks it all in a pan, before putting them on sandwiches, topped with whatever veggies were left over.
“Waste nothing, wide-eyes, many fruit peels have more nutrition than the fruit itself.”
Rachel tried a little of everything they prepared, saving the banana peel sandwich for last.
“Holly shit…” she says.
“Holy shit, indeed.”
She and Touch and a dozen others spent a lot of time playing with Arch, who had tighter control over his electric abilities than most divs Rachel had seen. They found the more they fed him, the more likely he was to get overexcited and zap someone if he didn’t exercise.
Over the nets, they learned the occupying force lead by major Vincent was settling in. They finished raising militias and checkpoints, and were now in the process of clearing out multiple buildings in every town to use as barracks, prisons, offices, storage, and anything else they could need.
There wasn’t much to be said about this new team lead by major Sanders. He apparently had an entourage of fifteen; twelve fighters, and three for his private staff. He had spent the last couple of days in meetings with the council of Nuever while his team settled in. After the supply convoy he came in on was emptied, it was driven to the outskirts of town and it hasn’t been seen since. Probably to collect the scrap and investigate her house. Her thoughts kept drifting to the picture she left behind.
When the fake device scanners arrived by courier, Rachel was helping Touch with his side project of teaching Arch to taze others on command. There were a surprising amount of volunteer targets for this exercise.
---
This town is a god-awful mess. Major Sanders thinks to himself.
This incompetent council had almost no record keeping or accountability of its civilians. None that were useful to him, anyway. Half their population was unaccounted for, simply marked down as nameless ‘transient’ personnel. Every building had only a basic roster of who worked there, what they stored, consumed, and produced. But again, many of the workers were this nameless, faceless class of ‘transients’.
Apparently, they only track the ones that sign a contract with the council to become official members of the town. Everyone else can just do as they pleased. It was the laziest, most inefficient use of resources he had ever seen. It was unacceptable, and it had to change.
Who knows how much was being lost to theft, embezzlement, bribery. Who knows how many people have been slipping through the cracks and gaming the system. This place was a cesspool for criminal activity.
His car pulls up to a large beige farmhouse. A woman approaches from a greenhouse across the lot. Sanders gets out of the back seat.
“Miss Tara, I’m Major Sanders, from AriCorp. I have a few questions I need to ask.”
He only knew where Rachel worked, and where she lived, because they had a bounty hunter occasionally keeping tabs on her over the months. But what else she’s been up to, and where she’s gone, he had to find out the old-fashioned way.